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mywittynameyesterday at 7:26 PM6 repliesview on HN

The two-party system is fine. We have to be honest about the fact that parliamentary systems can give massive power to a tiny fraction of the population when that small party becomes the deciding vote.

The problems with the USA political system are: electoral college, senate being 2 votes per state, and the supreme court being 7 people for life. But nothing can be done about the last two now. Especially now that the Supreme Court made a decision limiting how amendments can be ratified.


Replies

JauntTrooperyesterday at 10:40 PM

The efficacy of US democracy has eroded over time, and it's clear we're going to need reforms to preserve democratic governance for future generations.

Every branch of the federal government has experienced a decline in democratic accountability.

The House is so gerrymandered that only 10% of seats are remotely competitive each year, and it hasn't kept up with population growth.

The Senate is permanently gerrymandered, with state population differences that are far more disproportionate than what was originally designed for and intended when the Constitution was written.

This combined with hyper-partisanship prevents the US from accepting new states like Washington DC (population 700,000+) and Puerto Rico (population 3.2 million), depriving millions of US citizens from Congressional representation (no, non-voting representatives don't count).

The Supreme Court has become hyperpartisan, and appointments are a high stake circus that rely on arbitrary retirements and deaths. They need to be elected at this point to preserve democratic legitimacy.

As for the Presidency... the Electoral College has resulted in the election of the loser of a popular vote twice in 25 years.

I don't know how reform will happen, or if we'll ever see it in my lifetime but we desperately need it. The US government needs to be accountable to the people again.

Democracy is precious, and it's so tragic to see how much it's declined.

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zeropoint46yesterday at 7:39 PM

I think it's 9 justices

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dragonwritertoday at 5:11 AM

> The two-party system is fine.

No, its not, as anyone who has paid even a slight amount of attention to the study of comparative government among modern nominal representative democracies would recognize.

> We have to be honest about the fact that parliamentary systems can give massive power to a tiny fraction of the population when that small party becomes the deciding vote.

Parliamentary systems can be two-party and multiparty systems do not need to parliamentary, so you are starting with a false dichotomy. And the problem you describe is less often a problem with multiparty systems (parliamentary or otherwise) than two-party systems, because the reliance on ad hoc coalitions means that there is much more likely to be the option of replacing a faction that is leveraging its marginal role in creating a majority to wag a coalition that is a small part of, whereas a small faction within a major party in a two party system that is crucial to maintaining a partisan majority cannot practically be defied without the rest of the party surrendering its majority, giving it much more power than a minor coalition partner in a multiparty system.

(Parliamentary or semi-presidential systems are also generally better than presidential systems, but that's a whole different issue from the multiparty vs. two-party issue.)

> The problems with the USA political system are: electoral college, senate being 2 votes per state, and the supreme court being 7 people for life.

The first two of those are also problems (though actually being a Presidential system is a bigger problem, and a problem without which the electoral college would be moot.) The third is simply inaccurate.

> But nothing can be done about the last two now. Especially now that the Supreme Court made a decision limiting how amendments can be ratified.

The Supreme Court decision on how amendments can be ratified (basically, however Congress decides) does not substantially limit what amendments can be passed. And it is the first two are set in the Constitution, the third (even using the correct current number of 9) is not, and can be changed (that the Supreme Court exists and that federal judges have lifetime tenure as federal judges are set in the Constitution, the number of seats on the Supreme Court, whether that number is fixed or floating over time, and the tenure of judges on the Supreme Court separate from their tenure as federal juddges is not; all of those can be changed by statute. If Congress wanted to make Supreme Court justices appointed for a fixed term of years from among the set of lifetime federal judges, that would be possible. If Congress kept lifetime tenure for justices, decided to have one appointed every 2 years regardless of the current size of the court, and have the Chief Justice appointed for 4 year terms from among the sitting justices, that would work too.)

Sabinusyesterday at 8:37 PM

Ranked choice and compulsory voting would transform America for the better. But there never seems to be much enthusiasm for the idea.

teemuryesterday at 10:35 PM

> The two-party system is fine.

Is it? Many western countries are having more or less prominent populist right wing movements, and the two countries I can think of where that movement has gotten its hand in power on really significant issues during the last decade or so are UK and US. Both strongly two party systems at the time of the "interesting" developments. And I do not think a two party system is typical, I am sure there are some countries happily trodding along with their two political parties, but they are not the rule.

mindslightyesterday at 7:35 PM

> We have to be honest about the fact that parliamentary systems can give massive power to a tiny fraction of the population when that small party becomes the deciding vote.

The American two-party system gave massive power to a tiny fraction of the population, which the large Republican party then retconned into most of their members as their party platform. Now they're a large fraction of the population. I'd choose the approach where the small faction remains its own small faction, even if they occasionally get to pull the levers of power.